Soledad O'Brien meets Marcel Diallo

The Academics at U.C. Berkeley Are Studying The Work of Marcel Diallo

check out this pdf of a study that U.C Berkeley did of the Village Bottoms Cultural District.

Cannery: Black Panthers Strike Again

Thursday, August 14, 2008

By Angela Woodall
Contra Costa Times
www.ibabuzz.com

Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 10:16 pm in Art@theCannery, Black New World, Black Panthers, Cornelia Bell Black Bottom Gallery, Emory Douglas, Marcel Diallo, Oakland Museum, Pacific Cannery Lofts, Pine Street, Village Bottoms, West Oakland, night owl.

The Lower Bottoms’ impresario Marcel Diallo has been masterful about bringing Oakland’s past and present together. Little surprise then that he is behind the show Black Panther: The Cultural Ministry of Emory Douglas that opens Aug. 22 and runs until Sept. 26 at the Cannery, 1200 Pine St.

“We have to have some white walls, sometimes,” Diallo said after Douglas, who served as the Panthers’ minister of culture from 1967 to the 1980s, spoke at the Oakland Museum a couple weeks ago. ... So just to let you know in advance, an opening night reception will be held at the lofts, 1200 Pine St: A conversation with Emory Douglas, a performance by Diallo & Co. Pluse a special cultural presentation. Prints and books will be available. FMI: 510-451-4661.

http://www.ibabuzz.com/nightowl/2008/08/14/black-panthers-strike-again/

Fashion shows spring up around Bay Area

Sylvia Rubin, Chronicle Fashion Editor
Sunday, October 5, 2008

It's back to square one for emerging fashion designers who dream of putting on a runway show in the Bay Area.

Now that we no longer have San Francisco Fashion Week - canceled this year after a four-year run - smaller events are filling in.

Next up: The first (and maybe only) Bay Area Guide to Independent Fashion Festival, a one-day runway show and shopping event with a green bent, from noon to 7 p.m. Saturday at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

San Francisco has always been indie fashion central. Fashion followers who attended SFFW may recognize some of the names in the YBCA lineup - Cari Borja, Erin Mahoney, Evarize, Miss Velvet Cream and Saaz Designs, among them. Four designers, including Mahoney, plus a selection of locals who sell at the RAG boutique in Hayes Valley, will show on the runway. More than 40 small designers will participate in the accessories and clothing bazaar.

Co-produced by Oakland artist Letitia Ntofon and Cicely Sweed, associate curator of public programs at YBCA, in conjunction with "Bay Area Now 5," the center's triennial arts event, the show is a one-shot deal at the moment. "Ideally, we'd love to produce this regularly, but that remains to be seen," Sweed said. The event benefits Black Dot Artists, Ntofon's East Oakland nonprofit arts and cultural organization.

It does seem that smaller is better: In 2005, the disastrous San Francisco International Fashion Week - an ambitious project that tried to work in the European angle - imploded because of major mismanagement.

But the Arts of Fashion Foundation, a San Francisco outfit that puts on runway shows and symposiums with an international guest list, will fill that gap nicely with an event Oct. 25-29 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It will include a runway show with designers from Vienna and Brussels, panel discussions and master classes by designers from Paris, Sweden, Australia and London. For more information, go to www.arts-of-fashion .org.

The Yerba Buena day includes an accessories bazaar, an evening runway show and an afternoon panel discussion on diversity in fashion, with locals Irene Hernandez-Feiks of Chillin' Productions and Erica Varize of Evarize Fashion Cafe in Berkeley, where clients choose their own fabrics and styles from a menu. Susan Kaiser, chairwoman of textiles and clothing at UC Davis, also is participating. Admission for the day is $10, free for YBCA members. Go to www.ybca.org for more information.

"We want to celebrate the fashion designers who choose to live and work here and are overlooked by the larger fashion industry," Sweed said.

Blakely Bass, owner of RAG (Resident's Apparel Gallery), a co-op that carries ever-changing merchandise from small San Francisco designers, is one of the city's biggest fashion boosters. She's on maternity leave from daily duties at the store but hopes to attend with her 3-week-old baby in her arms. Her husband, Hockkee Yeo, who owns Oxenrose salon down the street, is providing hair and makeup stylists for the runway show.

Ten designers who sell at Bass' shop will be on the runway, and the store will receive a fashion award from Ntofon.

"This is somewhat of a replacement for San Francisco Fashion Week - there has always been a designer or two from RAG who participated every year," Blakely said. "I love going to Yerba Buena; I love the idea of an indie festival. This will give our designers more exposure than shows at galleries and clubs."

Oakland designer Borja is another loyal supporter of the local fashion scene. Known for her ruffled fleece jackets and dresses, she participated several times in SFFW and will show a still-life presentation of new work at the Saturday event.

"As usual, I want to support something that's local," Borja wrote in an e-mail. "And preparing for this has helped me come up with a collection again, even though I'm not doing a runway show."

Ntofon has other fashion projects in the works, like the 300-page Bay Area Guide to Independent Fashion, a self-published book of interviews with designers and boutique owners and comprehensive listings of where to shop. Its publication was supposed to coincide with the show, but as is often the case in life, the timing wasn't quite right. The book will come out in February instead.

"I'm interested in indie fashion as a cultural phenomenon," Ntofon said. "It's not a given for everyone. I see it as a movement to break away from the corporations and be distinct. After 9/11, indie designers seem to be everywhere."

Even given their interest in fashion, Sweed attended only SFFW once, and Ntofon didn't make it at all. "I was always either pregnant or taking care of an infant," said Ntofon, the mother of four kids, ages 7 years to 5 months. "And I'm not interested in doing what Erika did," she continued, referring to SFFW producer Erika Gessin, "to put San Francisco on the national fashion map. I'm more interested in providing a resource for emerging designers."

West Oakland artist takes a mixed-media look at Obama, U.S. politics

By Angela Woodall
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 09/30/2008 06:49:11 PM PDT
Updated: 09/30/2008 10:30:42 PM PDT


Oakland artist Githinji wa Mbire poses for a portrait with one of his new mixed media works,...
OAKLAND — The West Oakland studio of artist Githinji wa Mbire is 10,000 miles from the small mining town in Kenya where he was born. But through his art, the 45-year-old painter-sculptor has melded the two continents.
Tall and gaunt, Mbire uses materials from Oakland's streets to create works that are inspired by Africa, aesthetically, spiritually and conceptually.
His newest show opens Thursday at the Giorgi Gallery and brings the United States and Africa together through Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate whose Kenyan and African heritage is celebrated throughout the continent.
If slaves originally from Africa built the White House, it makes sense one of their descendents should be in there, said Mbire, whose angular cheekbones reflect his dedication to being a vegetarian as well as his East African descent.
Featured at the Thursday show will be 25 sculptures and five canvases covered with the texts of Obama's speeches in the shape of the African continent to give the campaign, as Mbire put it, "some more juice and more vibrations."
"It is my way to contribute as an African, as a Kenyan, to someone positive who I believe in," Mbire said, adding that 25 percent from the sale of the artwork would be contributed to Obama's campaign.
The work will move from the Giorgi Gallery show to a show opening Friday at Cornelia Bell's Black Bottom Gallery, where Mbire is co-director.
Meanwhile,
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Mbire will be out in Berkeley and Oakland with a performance theater act he based on the story of a candidate for the Kenyan parliament, Nicholas Rajula, whose platform was his claim to be a cousin of Obama's. (Obama's campaign denies the kinship.)
Look for the character "Onyango Obomo" on street corners accompanied by a boom box playing everything from Bob Marley to Roberta Flack, as well as Oakland's Goapele and Zion I.
Simultaneously, Mbire will be flipping through 47 album covers, each printed with a word that symbolizes Obama's campaign, an update on the Bob Dylan video to "Subterranean Homesick Blues."
The 47 represents Obama's age and instead of slogans such as "must bust," "district attorney" and "fire hose," Mbire will flash words from his lexicon of positive aspirations, such as "hope," "change" and "Michelle." "Onyango Obomo is here to just say, 'Think about what your vote means,'" Mbire said.
But, Mbire said, "if you think Obama is big here, you should go to Kenya. He's huge. People are very proud of him."
Not since the release of former South Africa President Nelson Mandela from political imprisonment after 27 years on Robben Island has such a tide of optimism and pride swept over a continent that receives little good press.
Obama's "mystic coolness" has helped unite Kenyans more than any politician in the country, according to Mbire. He has even generated a mini-economy through sales of T-shirts with his likeness.
Obama is helping feed people even without being elected, Mbire said.
Mbire will upload a 47-second clip of an Onyango Obomo performance to YouTube.
He also will have his camera in hand Thursday and Friday to photograph people wearing Obama T-shirts for a book he is assembling of the wearable political art.
The show is a sneak preview of a show Mbire may expand to 47 pieces and take to a Washington D.C., gallery. Some of his work will be at the Miami Beach Art Basel show and culture fair in December.
A show of his light sculptures opens in November at the FIVEten Studio on 831 Broadway.
Mbire is part of a West Oakland band of artists who collaborate with Lower Bottoms neighborhood organizer Marcel Diallo in the Cornelia Bell gallery, the New Black World community space and other venues.
Mbire, whose voice still bears the rhythm of his native Magadi — a rhythm that rises and falls like the terrain in the southern portion of the Rift Valley near the Tanzania border — arrived in the United States 15 years ago.
It was not long after he made Oakland his second home three years later in 1996 that his work began to be exhibited around the Bay Area and then the nation, including in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, with themes ranging from Marvin Gaye's life and music to street installations around West Oakland that offered the African point of view on the Iraq war's effect on U.S. minorities.
But Mbire's homeland is still a strong element in his art.
"What is Africa in this thing?" is the starting point for his work, mostly pieces of mixed-media collages created with wood on which he prints or draws images. Mbire then attaches shells and other materials that have what he called "life force" because they come from the earth.
Reach Angela Woodall at 510-208-6413.
or awoodall@bayareanewsgroup.com.
To attend
The Thursday reception for Githinji wa Mbire is 5 to 9 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. For details, visit www.giorgigallery.com or call 510-848-1228. Cornelia Bell's Black Bottom Gallery is at 1018 Pine St. The telephone number is 510-451-4661.

1st Ever George Jackson Exhibit in America at the Black New World

Check out the photos from the first ever George Jackson Exhibit proudly presented at the Black New World at 836 Pine Street in West Oakland's historic Village Bottoms Cultural District. sponsored by Billy X's It's About Time Newspaper

Art at the Cannery, another reason to visit West Oakland's Village Bottoms

By Cecily Burt
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 10/02/2008 11:03:05 PM PDT
Updated: 10/02/2008 11:04:58 PM PDT

Marcel Diallo, an artist, musician and storyteller, is a dedicated hustler for the arts. Although, West Oakland has always drawn its share of artists, Diallo has mostly focused on creating opportunities for African-American artists, poets and musicians to perform and collectively share their craft and knowledge with anyone willing to venture to the Village Bottoms Cultural district to look and listen.
Starting today, Diallo is reaching beyond his comfort zone to gather works in a range of media from 30 West Oakland artists for "West Oakland at the Moment: A Survey of Artists and Their Intentions," at Art at the Cannery, a new gallery space at the Pacific Cannery Lofts.
He curated this exhibit based on geography, inviting artists who live or craft their art forms within a few blocks of each other, but who have very different styles, audiences and motivation for their creations.
For example, sculptor Bruce Beasley, whose large abstract metal creations can be seen as public art pieces around Oakland, has contributed a small bronze piece for the show. His work will show alongside that of eesuu orundide, whose collages of everyday objects focus on the political, social and historical issues surrounding the African diaspora and black new world. Both are well-known, but in entirely different circles.
"A lot of it is to kind of show what's here (in West Oakland)," Diallo said. "I'm always pushing my agenda: black folks, black artists. "This exhibit has white artists, black artists, young, old and everything in between; everybody who happens to be in West Oakland at the moment," he said.
Diallo is also persuasive. He convinced Pacific Cannery Loft developer Rick Holliday into letting him turn one of the ground-floor units into an exhibit space, and Art at the Cannery was born.
Diallo is curating a series of six shows there designed to highlight cultural, social and historical trends that impact West Oakland's historically black residents, and to create a lens with which to view the world.
Diallo launched Art at The Cannery in August with a provocative social display of Black Panther newspaper covers by Emory Douglas, the Panthers' former minister of culture whose graphic art promoted Panther survival programs and said more about the social inequities and oppression suffered by poor blacks than words ever could.
Art at the Cannery is located at 1200 Pine St., Oakland. It opens today from 6 to 9 p.m., after which the exhibit will be open from noon to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. An after-party will follow the opening at the Black New World Social Aid and Pleasure Club, 836 Pine St.
For more information go to blacknewworld.com.

'Black New World' opening across Bay

'Black New World' opening across Bay

By Angela Woodall
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 10/08/2008 07:55:47 PM PDT

Starting tonight, West Oakland-based artist and community advocate Marcel Diallo and several collaborators will transform the Room for Big Ideas in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts into an outpost of "The Black New World Social Aid & Pleasure Club," using assemblage altars, multimedia and other items.
The "Black New World Annex" uses art, history and performances to reflect issues related to the African Diaspora and Bay Area community issues.
There is no charge for the show's opening night party that begins at 6:30 tonight. The show will run through Nov. 16.
On Oct. 18 Diallo will read from his upcoming book, "Black New World Manifesto," from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Yerba Buena Center's screening room. He will be accompanied by drummer Kele Nitoto and saxophonist Ric Alexander.
For more information, about the "Black New World Annex," visit the Web site www.blacknewworld.com.
The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is located at 701 Mission St., San Francisco. The telephone number is 415-978-ARTS (2787) and the Web site is www.ybca.org.

Arch Bishop King & Marcel Diallo on Block Report Radio

Arch Bishop King & Marcel
Written by Minister of Information JR
Monday, 10 November 2008

Arch Bishop King, of the John Coltrane Church, and Marcel Diallo, owner of the Black New World, speak wit' the Minister of Information JR, separately, about environmental racism and the land grab in West Oakland, Hunter's Point, and in other Bay Area communities

The Odd Couple:How developer Rick Holliday reached out to community activist Marcel Diallo to pave the way for Central Station.

The Odd Couple
How developer Rick Holliday reached out to community activist Marcel Diallo to pave the way for Central Station.
By Rachel Swan

August 27, 2008
If West Oakland's "Village Bottoms" were its own insular township, then Pine Street would constitute the arts district. A wide road lined with two-story walk-ups, it's home to the Cornelia Bell Art Gallery, the Black Dot Cafe, and the Black New World Social Aid & Pleasure Club. The whole scene has loosely coalesced around local curator Marcel Diallo, who's known both for his connections in the art world and his persistent anti-gentrification campaigns. An incubator and an agitator, Diallo has nonetheless positioned himself as the guy to know if you're a newcomer seeking any kind of street cred in the neighborhood. Which explains why land developer Rick Holliday — a man who, in many ways, could be the Village's nemesis — set out to endear himself to Diallo before launching what has to be the most ambitious projects that West Oakland has seen in years. Oddly enough, it worked.

At first glance, they seem like an odd couple: Holliday, the astute businessman with a large portfolio of rehabilitated landmarks and live-work spaces, and Diallo, the committed bohemian and life-long crusader, known for his socially conservative vision of the neighborhood (not for nothing is the name "Black New World"). But somehow the two managed to join forces, entering a unique, if somewhat improbable arrangement. Two years ago Holliday came in and turned the Pacific Cannery on Pine Street into a chic townhouse complex. The apartments are competitively priced, starting at around $295,000. Holliday is trying to entice artists, young cosmopolitans, and first-time homebuyers, particularly those who have some kind of stake in the neighborhood. A downstairs gallery that abuts the Cannery lofts has been reserved for community artists of all stripes, though for the next several months, at least, Diallo will be its main curator.

Black New World collaborator Kele Nitot describes Holliday as a James Bond lookalike: He's quick, lithe, and a little disarming, and vaguely resembles the M16 agent in 2006's Casino Royale. Holliday grew up in Orinda and went to UC Berkeley, where he got a BA in urban policy and a master's in city and regional planning. His dissertation on the rehabilitation of West Oakland would prove eerily prophetic. Holliday married his high school sweetheart Nancy, started two affordable housing corporations, and launched Holliday Development in 1988. Among his most famous projects are the Clock Tower by the Bay Bridge, a once-vacant historical building that he converted into 127 loft apartments. He renovated an old turn-of-the-century-era print house that had been reallocated for storage in the '70s. He got hold of a decrepit warehouse in Emeryville that once was a furniture factory, and transformed it into 138 stylish units. He built the Iron Horse Lofts in Walnut Creek, which were integral to turning the Pleasant Hill BART station into a transit village. Even in a soft market, Holliday is quick to close real estate deals. He brags that he once sold eighty units in a single day.

Holliday discovered the Cannery by accident in 2001. He was going the wrong way, en route to the Holliday Development office on Park Avenue in Emervyille. "He was just driving, probably talking on the phone or something," said Nancy Holliday, who works as the company's creative director. "He went passed the train station and went, 'Oh my God, West Oakland! This is part of West Oakland! This is what I used to think about all the time.'" Located in the Prescott Oakland-Point neighborhood — which overlaps with what Diallo has now christened as Village Bottoms, and once marked the last stop on the Southern Pacific railroad — the building began life as Pacific Coast Canning Company, a business founded by a Chinese immigrant entrepreneur named Lew Hing. Rick has meticulously upheld the Cannery's history, naming one of its three courtyards after Lew Hing, inviting members of Hing's extended family to come visit, and even preserving a century-old scale that was once used to weigh cans.

In the next few months several developments will spring up in the thirty acres that have now been deemed "Central Station," a smart-growth community within Prescott Oak Point. The historic Cannery lofts will soon be cheek by jowl with an affordable housing complex and another building with market-rate condos. Nancy said there won't be any fences between the projects, only greenways and walkways. She said a similar arrangement in the Iron Horse Lofts helped foster a sense of community within that residential area. How this new community will interact with the established Village Bottoms remains to be seen, though Rick said it's quite possible that former Bottoms residents may become homebuyers in Central Station. After all, the prices are low, and he says that even with the reality of credit markets, lenders are willing to write mortgages for the property.

Winning the neighborhood over was a long process of courtship. Rick spent several months hanging out in local barbershops and getting to know everyone on a first-name basis. He said Diallo was wary of him at first. "I first met him in about 2003 maybe. And then the project went through in 2005. His testimony for the planning commission was interesting because some of his ambivalence, but expressed ultimately that it was a good thing." Rick's relationship with West Oakland artists started out shaky, but it became one of grudging respect, then genuine appreciation as the developer showed his commitment to preserving elements of the homegrown scene. A cafe at the Cannery entrance displays photographs by Julie Placencia, depicting all the families on her block in West Oakland standing in front of her homes. In the gallery next door, Diallo has mounted an exhibit of old Black Panther newspaper covers and poster graphics by San Francisco artist Emory Douglas. Diallo showed up to last Friday's opening reception in a suit and pork pie hat, and addressed a crowd that included Coup rapper Boots Riley, aerosol artist Refa 1, and city council hopeful Rebecca Kaplan, along with Douglas himself.

Through careful politicking and negotiation, Rick has demonstrated that he's not at cross-purposes with the locals, and that he wants Central Station to be just what the name implies. "It's good that we were able to actually bless it, incubate it," said Diallo, who's accepted Rick's presence in the neighborhood but indicates that the Cannery is sitting at a crossroads. Thirty people have already moved into the Pulte real estate nearby, and Rick predicts that in the coming months at least 150 people will settle in the Cannery's 160 units. "I said to Marcel this neighborhood's gonna be really different when the Cannery fills up," Rick said. He's doing his best to make sure they all co-exist peacefully.

One Of Two SF Business Times Articles Tht Mentioned Marcel Diallo on Nov. 21, 2008

Friday, November 21, 2008
West Oakland looks to SoMa’s revival model
Condos join mix of older housing and warehouses
San Francisco Business Times - by Blanca Torres

West Oakland is on the cusp. The neighborhood, which sits at the base of the Bay Bridge, could become the Bay Area’s next great success story — if it can survive the current economic downturn.

Some developers see West Oakland as the next South of Market, a San Francisco neighborhood transformed from an under-utilized industrial zone to a booming office and residential district.

West Oakland’s location seems ideal, with easy access to both downtown San Francisco and downtown Oakland. Its acres of empty land and abandoned industrial sites make it ripe for redevelopment.

Investment mostly skipped over West Oakland for decades, but that changed in the last several years. The neighborhood now balances attracting investment with preserving a rich history and sense of community.

Like other neighborhoods in the city, West Oakland experienced a housing boomlet with 1,000 units recently completed, under construction or approved. Plans are also in the works to revive the West Oakland Train Station, a historic site now vacant for more than two decades.

West Oakland, an area encircled by freeways, includes industrial warehouses, artist lofts, Victorian homes, one of the busiest BART stations, soccer fields, decades-old businesses and the train station that once served as the primary portal for newcomers to the Bay Area.

Perhaps no one understands the analogy between SoMa and West Oakland better than developer Rick Holliday. The first developer to build work/live units in SoMa in the early ’90s, he decided to make a similar bet in 2000 on West Oakland by buying 29 acres between Frontage Road and Wood Street to build a master development called Central Station.

Holliday eventually sold off some parcels of the land to other developers. He kept a section with a former cannery that he redeveloped into 163 lofts that hit the market in September.

Central Station also includes 130 townhomes by Pulte Homes, 99 affordable apartments built by Bridge Housing and another 350 to 400 apartments by Emeryville-based HFH Limited. Pulte has built more than a third of its units while Bridge Housing recently began construction on its site. HFH has yet to break ground.

Other developers such as Kathy Kuhner of Dogtown Development and Bill Lightner of Lighter Property Group are holding on to entitled residential projects there until the economy recovers.

Phil Tagami of California Capital Group, who also worked on restoring the Rotunda building and the Fox Theater, signed on to lead the restoration of the train station, which may become an events space.

Along with new housing, a neighborhood like West Oakland also needs to grow its job base, said Malo Hutson, assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley. The city is working to attract green companies, many of which may end up in West Oakland.

“The question is how do you attract green business and also, what do you do with the land?” Hutson said. “That could drastically change what happens in West Oakland.”

The large tracts of new construction sit in contrast with an existing residential neighborhood lined with Victorian homes.

One issue some residents have is that shiny, new housing is built while they feel the existing community is ignored.

“This is a historically African-American neighborhood,” said Maxine McKinney De Royston, who bought a renovated Victorian in West Oakland about a year and a half ago with her husband Reggie Royston. “I don’t want West Oakland to look like Emeryville.”

The Roystons, African-American graduate students at UC Berkeley, want to live in a neighborhood with a strong sense of community and a diverse population. They say their main concern with the multi-family developments is that the residents want to stay in their units rather than become part of the neighborhood.

“The sentiment is that ‘We’ve been fighting for so long to have some sort of development’ and now there’s all this investment, but it caters to newcomers,” Hutson said.

Holliday has tried to address that issue by enlisting artist and entrepreneur Marcel Diallo to set up two galleries in the Pacific Cannery Lofts to showcase the work of about 30 artists who live within three blocks. The projects also includes a space for a café that Holliday is shopping to Tanya Holland, owner of the nearby Brown Sugar Kitchen. The restaurant opened in January and is usually packed.

“People here are just so happy to have a restaurant like this in the neighborhood,” said Holland, who moved to West Oakland three and half years ago. “As a resident, I definitely feel a sense of community and pride. People here like connecting with each other.”

More residents could support better amenities such as a full-service grocery store, dry cleaner and more restaurants. Residents also want more bus lines and infrastructure improvements.

The Roystons support the idea of improving the neighborhood with new development, but they would like to see it happen alongside a revitalization of the existing housing stock — house by house.

“We want people to buy these houses and do them up,” Reggie Royston said.

Holliday’s Cannery Lofts also need buyers. The developer considers the project the best he has built, but the one that has fared the worst in terms of sales.

“I’m still bullish on West Oakland,” Holliday said. “The real estate business in general has been hit hard of late, so it’s hard to look at any area with enthusiasm and optimism because the market has been challenged so much. If you put that aside, and think that there will be a stabilized market soon, West Oakland is as good as it gets.”

West Oakland, California's Black New World club forges a fresh artistic community in the shadows of a once-thriving district.

It's just past midnight and the crowd at Black New World wants an encore. Dynamic, the band that's been playing soul and funk music all night, climbs back onto a small stage that's decorated with African masks and an altar. Beneath the lead singer's confident smile and olive skin is just the slightest hint of uncertainty at what this last performance might entail. To her left is the drummer, whose energy seems as free-falling as the dreads hanging loosely down his back. He starts up the baseline and the others follow.....

OAKLAND: DEVELOPMENT: San Francisco Magazine

excerpt from San Francisco Magazine October 2007 Issue

"When visionary developer Rick Holliday came up with the idea of renovating a cannery in West Oakland, now part of the Central Station project —a whole new village in one of the Bay Area’s poorest communities—he began by visiting the barbershop and chatting with locals about the neighborhood. Over the years, he has engaged residents and community leaders in countless discussions, so he enjoyed support for the project before he ever broke ground.

“We wanted to make sure the black population wouldn’t be excluded,” says Marcel Diallo, a resident of a nearby pocket neighborhood, the Bottoms, who is creating a cultural district close to Central Station with a social club, a health-food store, and a gallery. He and others brainstormed with Holliday about creative financing strategies for neighborhood people who want to move in. “We’re all down here together,” Diallo says. “Local people plan to be some of the first buyers at Central Station.”

Cal Poly Philosophy Alum Shaking Up Oakland with Cultural Revival District

Alumnus Marcel Diallo (B.A., Philosophy, 1995) wants to create a renaissance for a West Oakland neighborhood called "The Bottoms." Diallo and a handful of artists are trying to create a haven there for African-American culture -- before San Francisco Bay Area-style gentrification (and pricing) come to the area. Diallo is envisioning an enclave of all things African American -- black homeowners, black-owned cafes, galleries, boutiques and mom-and-pop shops. He’s even got a name for it -- the Village Bottoms Cultural District. Diallo has transformed the group black artists he hangs out with into a collective that is slowly moving into the neighborhood. They’re buying homes and starting businesses by pooling their resources and stretching financially. They also help each other with construction, painting -- an effort labeled "an urban barn raising of sorts" by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Listen to the NPR interview including Marcel Diallo
Read the San Francisco Chronicle story on Diallo's efforts
Read the Oakland Tribune story on Diallo and art galleries coming to the neighborhood

Black Dot Artists Collective: Evolving Tradition in West Oakland by CityFlight.com

Check out this article about Marcel Diallo and Don Cheadle featured in CityFlight Magazine entitled "Black Dot Artists Collective: Evolving Tradition in West Oakland"

The Fine Art of Rebuilding West Oakland

Check out this story NPR did on MD's rebuilding efforts in West Oakland...

Marcel Diallo, Duane Deterville, Reginald Lockett featured in THE MONTHLY

...
exerpt. from Roots & Rennaissance by ..

...Deterville is a military brat who grew up all over the world. When he came to Oakland to attend the California College of Arts and Crafts, he knew this was where he wanted to live and make art. Working on the book was his way to let people here know about all the talent in their backyard.

“Oakland is an African diasporic crossroads, and this is a special place where a lot of world-class artists come to visit,” he says. “Nina Simone came here at one point and James Baldwin had an apartment down by the Lake. I think that they come here because they can interact with world-class artists, artists of their caliber, but not have all the star glitz that you might have in L.A. or New York.”

Deterville says the city has always had different pockets of creativity: West Oakland with Slim Jenkins’ Nightclub and Esther’s Orbit Room; downtown with the historic Sweet’s Ballroom and black-owned Joyce Gordon Gallery; in the Lake Merritt area with the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, known for hosting master drummers and dancers.

“Oakland is very much a black community and that’s what’s built its richness over the years,” says Deterville. “There are all these people here who came from Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and brought all these different cultural things with them, like their food and the different styles of music.”

Deterville points to writer, artist and musician Marcel Diallo as someone who is building a “renaissance” on Pine Street in West Oakland. Diallo has opened four new businesses in the area, known as the Lower Bottoms: a performance space called the Black New World; a botanica and African art gallery called Nganga Diallo’s House of Common Sense; a cafe called the Black Dot; and a collective art gallery called the Cornelia Bell Gallery.

Diallo, who lives at 9th and Wood, right around the corner from the Black New World, wants to rebuild a thriving cultural district here. Surrounded by the masks and sculptures at Nganga Diallo’s House of Common Sense, Diallo talks about how art can help rebuild community. If you try and organize in traditional ways, you can get a lot of backlash, he says, but artists are allowed to say what they want.

“If you just say, ‘Well, I’m just an artist. I’m just a poet with an opinion.’ A poet with an opinion can say anything he wants because he’s just a poet. He’s just rambling. We’re not politicians trying to win an election,” says Diallo. “We’re just out here as artists, forging new territory and doing what we want to do on our own terms.”

Diallo and people like him are creating cultural institutions that bring life back to the neighborhood, says Reginald Lockett, a writer and teacher at San Jose State. There are several pictures of Lockett in Black Artists in Oakland, both by himself and with the Word Wind Chorus, an ensemble of performing writers. Eating cinnamon toast and drinking coffee at the Black Dot Cafe, Lockett recalls growing up in this neighborhood, and hearing his mother’s stories about how the migration of African-American people moving from the rural South to the cities changed the area. He agrees with Deterville, saying it’s the mix of black cultures here that makes Oakland unique. “This [city] has a history and a culture and a legacy that is as great as say Harlem, South Side of Chicago, Atlanta,” he says. “West Oakland has made an impact.”

Don Cheadle, Marcel Diallo & Black Dot's 11 Pictured in Oakland Magazine

Black Dot Artists Inc. celebrated 11 years of outstanding arts and educational programming Dec. 22 at the Oakland Rotunda Building with special guest and Academy Award nominee Don Cheadle. Guests enjoyed a gourmet dinner, drinks, live music and an intimate conversation with Cheadle as he gave attendees a glimpse of his personal views on the film industry, the arts and society in general. “We need to make changes globally and be proactive and aware of what is going on in our communities,” Cheadle said. The statement matched the philosophy of Black Dot, a nonprofit cultural arts organization committed to community development and cultural sustainability through fostering the living arts. www.blackdotartists.com. Photography by Rachel Capil.

Marcel Diallo Interview By JR Valrey in The San Francisco Bay View

The Black Dot: An interview wit’ Marcel Diallo
by Minister of Information JR
Wednesday, 23 May 2007



Do y’all remember the shack soulful club in the Alice Walker-written movie “The Color Purple” or the replica of the same era club that Erykah Badu created in her first video “On and On”? That’s the kind of spaces that the Black Dot Artists Collective has been creating for years around Oakland – first in the San Antonio district of East Oakland, now in the Bottoms of West Oakland.

The founder of the Black Dot Artists Collective is Richmond native Marcel Diallo, the young mid-30s visionary who put the crew on its feet. In this interview, we’re going to talk about the Black Dot’s non-profit organizing, philosophy on Black community-building, as well as what is going on in the Bay Area’s cultural arts scene. Check it out ...

MOI JR: I know that you founded the Black Dot Artists Collective. What has it blossomed into?

Marcel: Well, the original vision and philosophy of the Black Dot, and the Artists Collective that I named after it, is that it is the hidden doorway to the collective unconscious. In this sense it has been my job and the job of those in the collective to assist our people in a rediscovery and manifestation of their unlimited potential.

Since we are primarily artists, we have chosen to catalyze this process through advancing the culture using our talents in the fields of spoken word, music, visual art, literary art and the establishment of creative and cultural businesses and institutions that further what the socialists call “advanced work.” That what began as an artists’ collective 11 years ago has blossomed into an entire village of creative people who share core beliefs about self-determination, land ownership, reparations, right diet, and the importance of creating beauty and culture on a daily basis.

MOI JR: I know that you have been doing a lot of community work in West Oakland, in the Bottoms. Can you give the people an update as to what is going down there?

Marcel: Well, the Bottoms has become ground zero for the largest privately funded housing development to happen in Oakland in quite some time. Roughly a half a billion dollars will have been spent by the time it’s complete. The Bottoms has also become a “hip” place for young, white, middle class people to live. Nonetheless, we are down here maintaining and advancing the culture with the Blackest of intentions.

To date, my company, the Village Bottoms Community Building Development Co., has created an environment that has made it possible for roughly 30 young Black families to either purchase a home or start a business in the Bottoms. We are doing a lot of mass organizing through our non-profit organization Black Dot Artists, Inc., and our neighborhood association, The Village Bottoms Neighborhood Association, which will hold its first general assembly meeting sometime in June.

One of the first cultural businesses to be up and running was The Black New World Social Aid & Pleasure Club at 836 Pine St. A few weeks ago, The Coup performed there before a standing-room only crowd of roughly 150 people. And a brotha who goes by Afrikan Sciences spins the most soulful dance music I ever heard every Friday starting at 9 p.m.

The second business is an African Art Gallery/ Botanica & Curio Shop we call Nganga Diallo’s House of Common Sense. It’s a block down at 924 Pine St. and is open Monday through Thursday noon to 5 p.m.

The third business to pop off was Cornelia Bell’s Black Bottom Gallery, located at 1018 Pine St. Since December we have been having art openings every first Friday, presenting new and classic work, and these openings have become the talk of the town. The current show is called “Decolonization: An Installation of Self-Rule,” and it will be up until May 26. Come check it out. The gallery is open Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

Two more businesses we are incubating are slated to open on Saturday, May 26. The Soul Foods Cooperative Grocery Store and The Black Dot Cafe. We are having a New Orleans style Second Line parade complete with a 10-piece brass band that day to celebrate the opening of all the new Black businesses in the Village Bottoms Cultural District. It starts around 1 p.m. at the Black New World and will travel the Bottoms stopping at all the Village Bottoms businesses to give them a blessing of prosperity. Come through and check it out!

MOI JR: White people have been grabbing the land in the historically Black neighborhood of West Oakland, much like what is going on in the Fillmore, Hunters Point, Harlem and New Orleans, among other places. What do you think that we could do to preserve our communities?

Marcel: One thing we could do for starters is begin sticking together and being more unified in how we deal with each other in the community. The only reason white people are able to come into Black neighborhoods and do what they want to, in the first place, is because Black neighborhoods have been left vulnerable, partly by racist redlining practices, but partly by a mass exodus of our own gentry.

This word gentry has become a bad word as the root of the term “gentrification,” but the Black gentry – i.e., the Black shopkeepers, business owners, dentists, doctors, teachers and other professionals – were the backbone of the community. So when they left the Black flatland neighborhoods and chased after the White people into the hills and suburbs in search of the Amerikkkan dream, those of us who didn’t make it got left behind without the businesses, professional services and community leadership that the Black gentry once provided.

This left the door open for the Yemenian corner store monopoly to occur as well as the emergence of a plethora of highly organized white-run non-profit organizations that suck up all the foundation grants and government funding designated for places like West Oakland. If there were more Black community groups and businesses organized and unified with our heads on straight, we could run our own neighborhood businesses with our own investment dollars, as well as receive all the funding designated for “urban areas” and “at-risk youth” to run our own social programs.

A strong, “together” people do not allow missionary-type outsider institutions to dictate their fate; to the contrary, they are self-determined. So to preserve our communities, we’re gonna have to do like we used to do and stick together, pool our resources and keep it in the family.

MOI JR: Some of your artwork, as well as art from other artists, are featured in your Cornelia Bell Art Gallery. What is the purpose of your visual art, and how long have you been doing it?

Marcel: Well, my visual art is an extension of my musical art and my spoken word art. In all the artistic disciplines I work in, I desire to convey a feeling of the past and the future all in one. Like representing for the ancestors and the yet to be borns, but being rooted right here in the Now.

As for the work I made for the “Decolonization” show, I used the old lath wood from the walls of old Victorians belonging to some of the first Black families to live in Oakland, reassembled them into the shape of houses or arrows pointing in the four directions and used new spray paint to add color, images and write the name of African colonies and their liberation date on them.

This mix of the new and old is where I’m at right now. It’s like I’m tryna be a link to the past in a generation that’s moving so fast they ain’t paying too much attention to history. If it ain’t on the radio, TV or in the popular magazines, most youngsters ain’t tryna hear or see it. So yeah, I’m attempting to create a blast from the past, but still be true to my futuristic self.

MOI JR: What is going on wit’ the Bay Area’s cultural art scene? What other artists do you think that the people may not have heard of and need to watch out for?

Marcel: The Bay Area’s cultural art scene is finally recovering from the negative effects of the Slam phenomenon. The true poets, musicians and artists are returning to the forefront, while those who got caught in the slam jam are basically transitioning into a disco-like played-outness, unless they were hard enough workers to make up for their lack of creativity and originality by forging a career in college speaking tours, teaching gigs, “hip-hop” theater and the like.

In regards to the true talents that will show the Bay what they got in the coming year or so, I would say look out for the multi-talented writer, painter, fashion designer, poet Letitia Ntofon, longtime Black Dot percussionist and writer Kele Nitoto, and filmmaker, writer, food-artist Tiffany Golden. They all have book projects that are just about complete and will be coming out soon.

On the musical side, I’m diggin’ this rhythm selector named Afrikan Sciences, who spins at the Black New World every Friday night. The music he spins doesn’t have a genre label attached to it yet. Come check him out. I’m also diggin’ a few songs I’ve heard from this kat named Eric Rico who lives in Oakland sometimes. As far as local and under exposed, that’s it for now.

MOI JR: How can people keep up with you and the different events that you have going?

Marcel: Folks can contact us by email at info@blackdotcafe.com or the website at www.blacknewworld.com. Or call one of the businesses – The Black New World, (510) 238-6780; Village Bottoms/ Black Dot Artists, Inc., (510) 433-0444; Nganga Diallo’s House of Common Sense, (510) 451-4661; Cornelia Bell’s Black Bottom Gallery, (510) 238-9008. Holla.

Email POCC Minister of Information JR at blockreportradio@gmail.com, and listen to the Block Report at hiphopwarreport.com or myspace.com/blockreportfilm.

The Black New World's Rebirth

I haven't blogged in a minute, there's been so much going on that i just haven't had the time to sit and write into this computer. Anyway, Since the Coup showed love and did a standing room only hometown show before a packed audience at the Black New World before hitting the Coachella last month, we have been busy, producing the 7th annual Malcolm X jazz festival in San Antonio Park on May 19th, program of weekly and monthly events at the Black New World and Cornelia Bell's Black Bottoms Gallery 1st Friday Art Opennings. One of my favorite events is Fridays at the Black New World. This dj named Afrikan Sciences spins some deep soul house type music that's out of this world. At Cornelia Bell's we've had 2 art shows including May's Decolonization: An installation of Self Rule and currently Oshun: Water No Get Enemy. All of the events are getting the word out about the Village Bottoms Cultural District movement to secure a Black cultural district in West Oakland and our work in general.

Last Wednesday we hosted what may very well be the greatest evening of events yet to occur at the Black New World. The night began with a community discussion about Black Musicians, Black Venues and Black Audiences, I entitled God Bless the Child That Got HIs Own. This discussion grew out of Greg Bridge's email letter exposing Yoshis exclusion of BLack musicians on their 10 aniversary cd and the resulting chain email discussion taken up by the Black jazz community of musicians and affectionados. There were about 65 folks at the discussion including Black Panther PArty Chairman and Co-founder Bobby Seale, Minister of Culture Emory Douglas, World famous saxophonist David Murray, attorney Walter RIley, Oakland Conservatory of Music Founder Angela Wellman, violinist India Cooke, radio host Greg Bridges, pianist Muziki Roberson, dancer coreographer Carolyn Himes, activist Hadiah Mcleod, artist Keba Konte, poet Reginald Lockett, artist/activist Greg Morozumi and Elena Serrano and all the Village Bottoms and Black New World Social Aid & Pleasure CLub folks.

After the discussion about 80 or so folks added on to the crowd as New Orlean's Rebirth Brass Band took the Stage and Took Us All to another level. They basically blew the roof of the muthasucka and let everyboby know how we do it down in old New Orleans. It was off the chain and everyboby in attendence enjoyed themselves thoroughly. People kept coming up to me all night telling me about the good time they were having and how beautiful the space was. All this, Black music played by Black Musicians in a Black Venue before a predominantly Black audience....is a rare occurence in America today. Moreover, the audiences for Great Black Music are predominantly White and European, thus causing a serious shift in the way the music is played and received. This type of shit is what eventually waters down the music, because being that it is a music created by Black people in a Black environment for themselves, by the time it begins to be consistantly play for a predominantly non-Black crowd, this audience passively acts upon the music and changes it. Folks don't like to admit this fact, but that's how we got from bebop to jazz-fusion to the elevator music kenny g type shit that they play on 103.7.

Anyway, the rebirth musicians were very happy and juiced that I hooked them up to play for us, I could tell that Tuba Phil was enjoying playing for Black people in the bay area for a change. Usually when they are brought out to california they play at the Independent in San Francisco or some jazz festival up north before a predominantly White audience. This is pretty much the first time they actually played their own gig in Oakland. And what a special moment it was for those in attendance, not only did we get to experience Rebirth's first Oakland show, we also got to witness saxophonist David Murray sitting in with them. Murray is considered by many to be the greatest living jazz sax man of our time, and his fire added a nice element to the already bangin' rebirth set. I want to thank everyone in attendance for coming out and making it an evening to remember.

THE COUP LIVE TONITE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25 @ THE BLACK NEW WORLD

Come Thru and Dig THE COUP and Bicasso Live and the Black New World Social AId & Pleasure Club. Tonite. Wednesday, April 25, 2007. 836 Pine Street • Oakland, CA. Village Bottoms Cultral District

Good Vibes, Spirits Take Over: West Oakland's Black Mecca in Effect

This is a good article. It was in Oakland Tribune's Friday Metro section and it features an event we had at Cornelia Bell's Black Bottom Gallery on Friday, February 2, 2007. Come on down to the Village Bottoms. The Black New World, Nganga Diallo's House of Common Sense and Cornelia Bell's BLack Bottom Gallery. Pine Street is where it's at. Village Bottoms Neighborhood Association, Black New World Social aid and Pleasure Club. The movement is on.

Upcoming Events @ The Black New World:

February 16 • Friday • Black Love Party • 9pm
February 18 • Sunday • Amiri Baraka Speaks • 2pm • $10



tacuma, githinji and marcel drumming for the tall dancing spirit

Against Gentrification? : Polarizing Headline conceals Truth of the Matter

Seems like the word is out about what we doing down here in the Bottoms. The only problem is that the editors of these mass media publications like stories about conflict so the editor of this story in the Chroncile Magazine spun a story about Black people doing for themselves and creating a cultural rennaisance in an historic Black neighborhood into a story AGAINST GENRIFICATION. I guess in a country where every gain for Black people is viewed as a loss for White people, most mainstream press will fall into this type of simplistic propaganda in order to conscously and/or subconsciously undermine the intention of putting Black people and what we are doing in a positve light.

The freelance writer, Anne Stuhldreher, to her credit wrote a positive article about our work in West Oakland, but it felt as if the editor Alison Biggar had issues with our story and/or didn't quite understand it and thus framed it problematically. The first instance of undermining the story was the openning photo. Out of all of the beautiful pictures Mike Kepka took of me and the community, the editor chose a picture of a dilapitated house that I have yet to rehab with me standing in front of it with my eyes closed in a seemingly drunken stupor as the frontspiece. The irony here is that the article says Marcel Diallo is a visionary. The writer reports that I am a visionary, the editor protrays me with my eyes closed in front of a raggedy house.




After this bad choice of photo, the editor goes on to title the article "AGAINST GENTRIFICATION: Marcel Diallo sees a black cultural district where Oakland's the Bottoms neighborhood now stands", instead of the writer's suggested title "BOTTOMS UP! Marcel Diallo's plan to turn Oakland's Bottoms district into a Black Cultural Mecca." This polarizing spin together with the desolate leading photo sets the reader up to dig the story in a certain way. But even with these negative overtones, the postivity of the article shines thru. After all we are on a mission to stablize a historic Black population in a certain place in the face of White people desiring to have this place for themselves. So the article serves the purpose of getting the word out to a larger public, so that any allies we may have can come on down to the Village Bottoms and join the effort.

The only problem though, is that the IDIOT GAZE that the mass media counts on to make or break a reader's interest and opinion about a story is most certainly defined by the leading photo, the title and the first few lines, so the editor's counter-juju will definitely have an effect on the emotion of most of the folks who read this piece. This is why I am putting my own thoughts out there concerning the matter, for all of you who dare to see past the idiot gaze of the mass media into the deeper more complex world of space, time, matter and spirit come on down to the Village Bottoms to visit us, we are in the process of transforming the world for the greater good.

To read the story press this link

AGAINST GENTRIFICATION: Marcel Diallo sees a black cultural district where Oakland's the Bottoms neighborhood now stands